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Or you could use VLC, which uses built-in FFMPEG and doesn't need admin privs, but has a pretty good UI.

I use VLC for my IPTV-provider, because RTSP sucks in mplayer (at least for me).

MPlayer also gets its "hands dirty" with DeCSS and WMV "support" in *nix.

... you can get around that with proxies according to Digg (also here). This project is only up for at least a two-month trial period. Full screen is not possible, but there are two different sizes and the quality is excellent (not HDTV quality) on a fast Internet connection at my workplace.

Don't forget to leave feedbacks for ABC on this project! Let them know what you think of it! It is also missing two of my other TV shows (Invasion and Grey's Anatomy). So, I left a request and a positive comment for ABC via its feedback.

I wonder if there is a way to set the Flash video to fullscreen onto my TV as a video overlay? I do this with Windows' Media Players, VideoLAN Client Media Player, DVD players, etc. I don't have to set the players to fullscreen, just the video out.

Quicktime is openly documented and available for anyone to use royalty-free. Vlc plays this particular quicktime trailer quite nicely.

Like everyone else, I'd have to call foul play on this one.

Although the compression may not be as good as ogg/flac/etc, mp3 is probably one of the most universally compatible formats out there--there are players for practically os in existance.

As for other formats, compatibility may not be as universal, partly due to companies' cold shoulder towards less mainstream OSes, partly due to dropped support for older machines. Though many may use wmp solely because it comes with their computer (talking about less-savy users), they'll have no trouble with these streams (if they're wma, for example). However, Mac support for wmp is shaky at best, Microsoft's official app crashing often, and VLC, although providing a good alternative to the official client, chokes up on wma streams. And I haven't bothered with Linux enough to know what WMA/Real support is like there.

I'm hoping that this doesn't pass, and it would be nice if the US government focused on something other than DRM and restriction on technology for a change, but sadly cash must be more powerful than words.

-Alex

Funny how winAMP and foobar2000 manage to run faster than iTunes.

Funny also how VLC and even WinAMP manage to not be complete shite at playing videos (and can even do fullscreen omg).

One might conclude that, in fact, Apple just can't handle coding in Windows, or something equally preposterous - because we all know that, unlike M$, Apple's never sued bloggers or screwed over customers or released broken hardware or... oh... wait...

I dared question the illusion that Apple <3's us all, so this is probably going to be modded flamebait - but whatever.

MY MOM KNOWS I'M INSIGHTFUL AND INFORMATIVE LIKE ALL THE OTHER BOYS.

Ever hear of VLC? Free (both as in speech AND as in beer), simple, doesn't hog resources, and plays pretty much every codec I've come across.

I didn't stop breathing, I just started using my nose instead of my mouth. You might want to give it a shot :)

Maybe you should tell Videolan that their libdvdcss doesn't use a key, as their developers clearly think that it does - in fact more than one:

http://developers.videolan.org/libdvdcss/libdvdcss /doc/html/
"""
DVDCSS_METHOD: sets the authentication and decryption method that libdvdcss will use to read scrambled discs. Can be one of title, key or disc.

        * key is the default method. libdvdcss will use a set of calculated player keys to try and get the disc key. This can fail if the drive does not recognize any of the player keys.
"""

I've been running Fedora Core 5 since Sunday, since Sunday I've been able to watch DVDs, try http://www.videolan.org/

Next trick will be to get sound out of the rear speakers, there seems to be a bug in ALSA, I've just recompiled the kernel with sound debug so I can poke around the AC97 registers.

The next video player I buy will be one that obeys *me* and not the *disc*.

The software player VLC (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/) will let you do that with DVD's. A godsend if you have kids and disney media.

> It's basically impossible for the common consumer to get a dvd player without region encoding in the states.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

IM: Trillian (needs to be replaced with a Jabber client + aim/yahoo transport)
Been done. gAIM for Windows. Why not clutter up our 100% closed source, proprietary monolythic OS with all sorts of inferrior extensible, modulized open source apps? ;)

IRC: Chatzilla
Well, here's another cross-platform solution: XChat. It has a nifty tabbed based chat management system. Of course, if you want the true Windows/IRC experience, get mIRC, load it up with tons of scripts (both self-activating, and manually activated), and go running through the networks of the world. Just watch out for the UNICODE nasties (mIRC doesn't support UNICODE)

Firewall: Sygate (needs to be replaced)
I can't speak for Sygate, but ZoneAlarm is pretty good, in my opinion. (With exception to games) this is the only closed source recomendation I have here, but what Windows experience is complete without some closed-source freeware/shareware?

This fun game: Typing of the Dead
This one is definately worth a try. Quite fun! It's a little old, but worth it. Speaking of old and worth it, see if you can locate a copy of Commander Keen. It's not really Windows (DOS, actually), but I doubt you'd see it on a Mac.

Music: Foobar2000 0.8.3 (iTunes and dumbed down fb2k annoy me)

Video: Media Player Classic with ffdshow

If you are using an iMac or MacBook Pro, then you might be interested in the Windows-only software that enables the ATI Radeon 1600's GPU-accelerated H.264 playback and video transcoding. For GPU-accelerated H.264, I think you need to purchase CyberLink's H.264 decoder. ATI's Avivo Video Converter is integrated into the latest Catalyst Control Center, which I'm not sure is included on Apple's Windows driver disc image.

Does anybody know if GPU-accelerated H.264 playback and video transcoding is enabled on OS X yet?

If you're planning to watch any sort of movies on Windows, there are a few useful programs (some of which are cross-platform):

• VLC media player - a nice all-purpose media player that works with DVDs in addition to many other formats.
• QuickTime Alternative and Real Alternative - free versions of the QT & Real codecs that allow you to play those formats without the need for a separate movie player for each. Also includes browser plugins and Media Player Classic, another free media player similar in appearance to old versions of Windows Media Player.
• ffdshow - a codec that allows Windows Media Player to play videos encoded with divx, xvid, and a bunch of other stuff.
• MPlayer, of course, also exists; I haven't tried it on Windows myself, though, so I can't say how well it works compared to its incarnations on other OSes.

Norton and Mcaffee both suck. I mean, they're both terrible, poorly written, resource-intensive programs. The best anti-virus software I've found is AVG Free Edition. Though, realistically, you only need AV software if you open email attachments and download stuff from websites that aren't obviously trustworthy.

For antispyware software, the only ones to use are Spybot and Ad-Aware. Again, you only really need those programs if you use Internet Explorer. Don't. Get Firefox instead.

What else is good and useful? VLC has been mentioned, it's the best media player. Some of these Powertoys are useful, especially TweakUI. For Instant messaging, Trillian is the best, though GAIM gets better all the time.

Other than that...games. I don't have any recommendations for those, you'll just have to find what you like. Have fun.

Here, let me fix that for you:

VLC Media Player is a fantastic media player for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.

It's hardly a reason to run Windows.

Here, let me fix that for you:

VLC Media Player is a fantastic media player for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.

It's hardly a reason to run Windows.

Videolan Website

Just write the DRM software and port it to Linux. Make a closed source, legal, libdvdcss and put it up for download. Put it on the DVD's you sell.

You want DRM so we can't copy content, well then give the softwareplayers. They won't be GPL, but they will be able to run on Linux.

Companies have DRM content to sell. The buyers are willing to buy. Give them the possability to buy and use it. This means making Linux software.

But you know, Jeff Ayers, that this is not about selling content. This is about selling DRM. Make a freely dristributable DRM player and SUSE will have it in its (boxed) distribution. Unfortunatly then you don't have anything to sell anymore.

> not until I can copy the timeshifted show to my (Linux) PC, PocketPC. or a CD or DVD

I agree, however you should have said supported, not can, you can:

http://armory.nicewarrior.org/projects/vstream-cli ent/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/tivo-vlc
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

His staff (namely a bunch of Neo-Convervatives - including Rumsfeld) has sought to reclaim power after being marginalized in the public mind for a while. We know they invented a terrorist attack (9/11), and used that to engage in a war where the whole point of the war has yet to be found despite a 3 year occupation. The president has blocked scientific research and even debate on any matter that he objects to.

It is good to see that America has begun to remarginalize the government despite the attempts for the government to create panic. The only sad part is that we are not demanded that the past transgressions be repaired. In this situation, no one wins. The american people must hold their government accountable.

For more information, see Power of Nightmares (Try the free, open source VLC player if you media player won't play)

Apple-VideoLAN partnership announced, Mac VLC to be Intel only

Posted on Sat, 1 Apr 2006 21:16:19 +0200 - Keywords: devel, videolan

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Paris, France (2006/04/01) - In an effort to help Apple with its Intel transition, the VideoLAN team, distributor of the industry leading cross-platform media player VLC, announced its intent to drop support for the now outdated G4 and G5 based series of Mac computers.

"We had to do something for Apple in return," former project leader Antoine Cellerier said in a public statement earlier today. Cellerier was referring to Apple's stance against the French DADVSI law. The controversed law, voted in March 2006 by French MPs, seriously jeopardizes VLC's development by forbidding French citizens to use software that bypasses Digital Right Management, such as DVD encryption or the protection scheme commonly found on music bought on the Internet.

But in late March 2006, Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris said the DADVSI law would "result in state-sponsored piracy." Apple then threatened to take down its French iTunes Music Store.

Despite Apple's tendency to send cease and desist letters to every website on the Internet, the VideoLAN team immediately understood that they were in fact trying to help Free Software. "After all, they built OS X on top of FreeBSD's cremated remains, and used what could still be saved from KDE's bloated web browser to develop Safari, which can only mean they fully embrace Open Source," VideoLAN developer Sam Hocevar added.

The VideoLAN team hence announced that starting from the next release, VLC would only run on Mac Intel hardware. Apple is already ahead of schedule; the Mac Intels were originally announced for June of 2006, yet that mark was beaten by almost half a year. Apple is confident VideoLAN's move will help finish the transition. "VLC is the most downloaded OS X application. By making it Mac Intel only, we can probably make the transition even faster. Let's not repeat the PowerPC fiasco," an Apple spokesperson said. The M68K to PowerPC transition, initiated in the 90s, led to the so-called "fat binaries" and excruciatingly slow versions of the Mac OS.

When asked how long older versions of VLC for the G4 and G5 series of processors would remain available, a VideoLAN webmaster said, "You'd better hurry. Our software is free, but webspace and bandwidth aren't."

About VideoLAN: VideoLAN (http://www.videolan.org/) is a project to build open source, cross-platform multimedia tools. Their VLC media player is the most downloaded Mac OS X application according to versiontracker.com.

About Apple: Apple is the creator of the hyped and overpriced Macintosh computer. Until recently, Apple buyers could brag in front of PC users about how their PowerPC-based computer was twice as expensive, but also twice as powerful as the Intel-based counterpart. Now, thanks to the Intel transition, Apple computers are only twice as expensive.

In France, the 'Free' ISP provides a freebox (modem) that can already do that, ie stream content from the computer to the TV. The feature is based on VLC and works with Windows, Linux or MacOS. More information here (in French, but with screenshots).

Of course, that's just one more feature of the free service, on top of TV (100 basic channels + channels you can subscribe to), phone (using VoIP, calls are free to a lot of countries), and internet (ADSL 1 mbit upstream, up to 20 mbits downstream), oh and video on demand too (no TV shows so far, only movies, costing from 2 to 5 euros). All that for 30 euros a month.

So why should I care about Viiv?

Unfortunately, I think that part of Sony will force this part of Sony to do something stupid again ...

You can put MPEG-2 into a transport- it's not QUITE as good as MPEG4, but it's better than MPEG-1. And better yet, MPEG4 decoders are VERY prevalent...

http://www.divx.com/
http://www.xvid.org/
http://www.3ivx.com/

Funny that, seems like we HAVE encoders/decoders out there for all the main platforms- and under almost all conditions, many of the mainline DVD players now have MPEG4 decode support (and EPIA motherboards, and...).

Oh, and about h.264...

Well, perhaps that's not prevalent yet (YET...), but there seems to be at least one FOSS implementation usable on all the main platforms:

http://developers.videolan.org/x264.html

Hm... Seems to me you missed the point that I was trying to make- there's no good reason for someone to have
pushed out a video of a Linux event's speaking session in a format that isn't fully supported on at least Liunx.
Technically, WMV isn't one of those sorts of things- MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, MPEG-4/AVC are supported in at least a AVI transport wrapper- and it's supported pretty much everywhere else to boot.

The community has decided...(drums)...VideoLAN to become the Firefox of mediaplayers.

It's clear that RMS feels that in some cases it is better to use the GPL than the LGPL.

I think RMS would say the GPL is preferable in the vast majority of cases. Else why would he urge developers -- in bold letters -- to release their libraries under the GPL?

But getting back to the topic of this thread: should GNOME's multimedia backend be licensed under the weak LGPL, when we know that the entertainment cartel has been one of the most vocal advocates of Digital Restrictions Management and Treacherous Computing?

Preventing users from skipping computers
Controlling your computer over the internet with rootkits
Instilling fear by suing innocent people
Suing independent competitors out of business
Bullying witnesses into perjury
and the list goes on...

The answer is absolutely no, and I daresay the FSF is of the same opinion, since they will include anti-DRM provisions in the GPLv3.

Developers of Free and Open Source Software should use every legal tool at their disposal to protect the users' freedom. One of the best tools is to license music and video apps under the GPL, so that the entertainment cartel can't poison their hard work with draconian DRM. Otherwise, the developers might as well be working for the RIAA and MPAA!

Open Source developers who care about the users' freedom should help out multimedia projects that are licensed GPL (such as Xine, MPlayer, and VideoLAN).

Ever since a company called Fluendo joined the GNOME Foundation's Advisory Board, GNOME is obligated to use GStreamer (a software product sponsored by Fluendo) as its audio and video backend. This wouldn't be bad, if it weren't for the fact that GStreamer uses Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) to handcuff users and leave them at the mercy of the entertainment cartel. In order to do this, GStreamer is denying its developers the right to license their constribution under the GPL, so that Fluendo can sell closed-source, proprietary DRM plugins that let the MPAA and RIAA control the users' viewing habits.

GStreamer has hurt the multimedia effort on Linux and the Free Desktop because they stole talented developers from mature mutimedia projects such as Xine, MPlayer, and VideoLAN, all of which were started before GStreamer and all of which have strong copyleft protection by being licensed under the GPL. In other words, GStreamer further fragmented the Linux multimedia developer base purely for the selfish, immoral purpose of ramming DRM down Linux users' throats.

Ximian, a company instrumental in founding GNOME, sold out to big business in 2002 by switching Mono's license from the GPL to the weaker MIT X11 license. Instead of helping out the myriad of established multimedia apps such as Kaffeine, AmaroK, and KMPlayer, Ximian started a whole new app called Banshee, whose only claim to fame is that its license (MIT X11) allows linking to proprietary DRM plugins.

These are just some example of an increasing problem GNOME is experiencing: it is pandering (and in some cases outright selling out) to companies that don't necessarily have the users' best interest in mind. One can say that the whole reason GNOME was started was to allow proprietary software (including draconian DRM) to use the hard work of open source developers.

KDE, on the other hand, is licensed solely under the GPL because the toolkit it is based on (Qt) is also GPL. KDE is also committed to preventing DRM from infesting their user's computers: for KDE4, they are building a multimedia framework called Phonon that does not depend on GStreamer, but which can use any number of backends, including DRM-free ones.

That doesn't seem to have stopped VLC, etc.

"What about personal/commercial usage?

Some of the codecs distributed with VLC are patented and require you to pay royalties to their licensors. These are mostly the MPEG style codecs.

With many products the producer pays the license body (in this case MPEG LA) so the user (commercial or personal) does not have to take care of this. VLC (and ffmpeg and libmpeg2 which it uses in most of these cases) cannot do this because they are Free and Open Source implementations of these codecs. The software is not sold and therefore the end-user becomes responsible for complying to the licensing and royalty requirements. You will need to contact the licensor on how to comply to these licenses.

This goes for playing a DVD with VLC for your personal joy ($2.50 one time payment to MPEG LA) as well as for using VLC for streaming a live event in MPEG-4 over the Internet." -- VideoLAN FAQ

Novell has made a couple of choices which don't display a clear committment to formats one can play with FLOSS.

Recently they started an audio show distributed online and this show is encoded exclusively in MP3 format. I wrote to them suggesting that they upload a WAV or FLAC file to archive.org and let archive.org make derivative files in a variety of formats including Ogg Vorbis, thus simultaneously offloading bandwidth and hosting resources while allowing people to hear their show without necessarily giving up their software freedom.

Now their "narrated screencam" is distributed exclusively in RealMedia format, for which there is no FLOSS player. This doesn't have to be this way—one could distribute the same movie in Ogg Theora+Ogg Vorbis format as well as their (apparently) preferred non-free format.

By contrast the Fedora project, York Student television (including Fluendo's Java player; I don't yet know if this will work with the Free Java software, but it's a handy way to point someone to a URL and let them watch the show) and a number of others distribute audio in Ogg Vorbis and movies with audio in Ogg Theora+Vorbis one can play on any platform using Free Software. There are even plugins for proprietary players to play these files (like illiminable's Windows Media player software).

1. EZTV RSS Feed
2. Azureus
3. RSS Feed Scanner plugin
4. VLC

You'll get every Jon and Steve episode, plus a lot of others. It's your TV. Own it.

There are several free Linux software projects which might or might not what you are looking for. The first thing that comes to mind is something called ZoneMinder which, if I am not mistaken, is a Linux home security sytem which uses remote wireless Internet cameras.

Then there is also the well known Myth TV project which among other things is mainly used by people who bouild their own Personal Video Recorders(PVR). Myth TV supports both HDTV, NTFS and possbly also some other video broadcast standards.

A third possiblility that comes to mind is VLC which is a cross-platform media player and streaming server.

And then there are various other video related programs for Linux such as TvTime the televison application, or MPlayer the movie player. Concievably even something like the Ekiga (formerly known as GnomeNetMeeting) might be relevant. Ekiga supports Full-Screen Videoconferencing. Ekiga supports Video4Linux and Firewire Cameras Support through plugins.

Many Linux video projects seem to be built building block fashion, using other previously written free Linux software, as dependencies. In many cases there are also various other free video projects which are sometimes just user friendly front ends for other free video software. I could not even begin to list all of those free Linux software projects for video and other things.

By the way, Linux has never had virus problems but, even so, there are free anti-virus programs available for Linux. The one that I use is Clam Anti-virus. There are also several good free firewalls avilable for Linux which allow you to control which IP ports are open or closed. There is one other interesting video project which is interesting but, probably not what you are looking for is the free movie studio in a Linux box.

I hope that something that I mentioned might be usesful. You can then decide if Linux is really what you want or not. I personally like it anyway.

Just download VLC player (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/). It has more features that WMP, is smaller profile, and is multiplatform.

Quit your whining. Just install VLC and watch the movies.

Q. What players currently support Theora?
Major players like mplayer, xine, helix player and VideoLAN supports Theora. Directshow filters are also available for use on Windows platform.

Noone is forcing anything on you. DRM plugins will be in the "ugly" module.

The whole reason why GStreamer started was to create a framework that would enable these "ugly" DRM plugins. GStreamer has hurt the multimedia effort on Linux and the Free Desktop because they stole talented developers from much more mature projects like Xine, MPlayer, and VLC. In other words, they further fragmented the developer base purely for the selfish, immoral purpose of ramming DRM down Linux users' throats.

Of course, they've tried to sugar coat this in order to attract developers (heck, their propaganda machine is quite good) but the fact remains that GStreamer is technologically inferior to Xine even now (Xine has a much cleaner, light-weight, robust API than GStreamer can hope to achieve in a long time).

Don't fight DRM itself

DRM is an insult to human dignity, and it WILL be abused, funneling money to the abusers so that they can bribe politicians, so that they can abuse some more. The buck has got to stop, and by raising this issue to the forefront of the computer user community, we just might be able to pull it off.

Closed-source software is not always bad, but its obscurity lends itself to being used in DRM schemes that enslave users. As a developer of Free and Open Source Software, I don't want Hollywood bosses to hijack my software in order to handcuff users and rip them off. I care about my users' rights and about my own, and I certainly don't want my work to make the RIAA's life any easier.

That's why I don't waste my time on GStreamer. Helping out multimedia apps licensed under the GPL (such as Xine and VideoLAN) is much better use of my time.

The AVR-2805 supports an RS-232 interface which is currently connected to the serial port on a FreeBSD server in my living room; my audio and video cards are also connected to the receiver. I've copied almost all of my music CDs and am in the process of copying my DVDs to this server. As it stands today, I can output different audio and video sources and can control the receiver itself by using a combination of kermit and vlc.

The next step is to add an HTTP based interface so that I can access this setup from anywhere in on the Net. My server has a wireless nic installed, and the DS has wireless support, so I've really wanted to use the DS to control everything. While I could also use my PSP, I'm more interested in the DS since it has a touch-screen interface. I think this will suit the application much better than having to use a keypad.

Seems that dts passthrough needs libdts, but after looking around seems they changed their name to libca and it says there they are getting sued by DTS Inc. Anybody know of any way to get dts passthrough working in mythtv?

And let us not forget Theora (http://www.theora.org/). VLC (http://www.videolan.org/) allows you to easily transcode into Ogg Theora and IPTV shows from revision3 (http://revision3.com/) are distributed using Ogg Theora. I have experimented with it a litte bit and I like the results over Xvid (for the same bit-rate), but I have switched to using x264 (developers.videolan.org/x264.html) but since it is also MPEG-4, it could be in trouble.

How come nobody mentioned VLC or Media Player Classic yet?

Because Google won't be using Windows Media.

The operative system may forbid to take screenshots of the windows that has DRM content...like mac os x does with DRm'ed videos I've been told

just for the record, it is only the bundled dvd player that does this...open-source alternatives like VLC allow you to take a screenshot just fine.

perhaps i'm the eternal optimist, but i have a feeling the open-source/free software communities will be able to ultimately prevail in the drm scene...

Documentation for open source projects, such as this example from VideoLAN's wiki. Also, collaboration on new features

I own a PowerBook and tried to watch the keynote using QuickTime but it was so choppy I had to give it up.

I downloaded VLC http://www.videolan.org/ and it plays beautifully.

And you get fullscreen with no mucking about.

This player is extremely powerful, native players for every O/S under the sun.

And you can *save* the stream to just about any format you like on the fly.

Oh, And shall we mention that VLC http://videolan.org/ is open source?

Also note that they are very worried about the patent problems recently. http://www.videolan.org/eucd.html

Also all of their download sites are not in the U.S., I have thought about being a U.S. Mirror a couple of times, but figure there is good reason to not distribute it within the U.S.

Oh, And shall we mention that VLC http://videolan.org/ is open source?

Also note that they are very worried about the patent problems recently. http://www.videolan.org/eucd.html

Also all of their download sites are not in the U.S., I have thought about being a U.S. Mirror a couple of times, but figure there is good reason to not distribute it within the U.S.

Everyone who want to view a WMV3 format video file that isn't running Windows, that's who. It's widely used.

This is actually a huge upgrade and great news for Mac users.

• http://www.videolan.org/streaming/
• http://www.videolan.org/doc/streaming-howto/en/str eaming-howto-en.html